Narrative:

Had the EICAS hydraulic indication deferred for system 1. Reviewed the procedure as outlined in the MEL book. I knew where the sight gauge was in the aft compartment. I had previously been given instructions on the phone by maintenance control on how to check this. Checked the gauge and compared the needle location to the other side to see if it made sense. Repeated this on the second leg which is what I selected for this report. On approach in our decent we received a hydraulic 1 low pressure caution. Short duration and never reappeared. On landing we received a hydraulic 1B message on clearing the runway with flaps out. We also had heard a loud whine from the rear of aircraft on decent. Maintenance was called and came to aircraft. To my horror I learned from bombardier maintenance that I had been improperly taught how to do this and that it was most likely a procedure for another aircraft. A mechanic went in the aft bay with me and showed me the correct way to read it. Further he said that the sight gauge for system 1 was broken and the EICAS display was correct. It had been reading between 0 and 5%. I have to wonder if this was the condition throughout and that the wrong MEL was applied to the aircraft and that the system was actually leaking the fluid out. Second issue is whether others are suffering the same issue I had of not knowing how to properly read the sight gauge. Previously I had only had this MEL on one flight several years ago.I would recommend that the following be done. Amend the MEL to add a line drawing possibly from the amm to show how to read the gauge properly. Have maintenance check the system on every other leg to verify that they quantities are correct. Add this to recurrent training so that it is seen more regularly.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ200 First Officer learns after the fact that he is not qualified to read the hydraulic reservoir sight gauge. A misapplied MEL for EICAS hydraulic quantity led to the requirement to read this gauge; which in turn led to hydraulic system failure.

Narrative: Had the EICAS HYD Indication deferred for SYS 1. Reviewed the procedure as outlined in the MEL book. I knew where the sight gauge was in the aft compartment. I had previously been given instructions on the phone by Maintenance Control on how to check this. Checked the gauge and compared the needle location to the other side to see if it made sense. Repeated this on the second leg which is what I selected for this report. On approach in our decent we received a HYD 1 LOW Pressure Caution. Short duration and never reappeared. On landing we received a HYD 1B message on clearing the runway with flaps out. We also had heard a loud whine from the rear of aircraft on decent. Maintenance was called and came to aircraft. To my horror I learned from Bombardier maintenance that I had been improperly taught how to do this and that it was most likely a procedure for another aircraft. A mechanic went in the aft bay with me and showed me the correct way to read it. Further he said that the sight gauge for SYS 1 was broken and the EICAS display was correct. It had been reading between 0 and 5%. I have to wonder if this was the condition throughout and that the wrong MEL was applied to the aircraft and that the system was actually leaking the fluid out. Second issue is whether others are suffering the same issue I had of not knowing how to properly read the sight gauge. Previously I had only had this MEL on one flight several years ago.I would recommend that the following be done. Amend the MEL to add a line drawing possibly from the AMM to show how to read the gauge properly. Have maintenance check the system on every other leg to verify that they quantities are correct. Add this to recurrent training so that it is seen more regularly.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.